It’s both selfish and illegal to remove fossils from their natural areas and I didn’t have a camera so thank you to the Martin family for this photo from their collection.

Recently, I was sitting on a shale beach and picked up a piece of the shale that was making my chair a little wonky. As I went to move it aside, it fell open in my hand. There within this tiny sliver of rock lay 3 wee fossils – two trilobite and a small plant like fossil lay exposed for the first time in about 450 million years.

I’ve seen fossils before – Rockpoint Provincial Park has spectacular fossils exposed on a limestone shelf stretching o ut into the lake and I visit once a year to see if I can find my favorites. But this was different. When that piece of shale opened and revealed one of mother earth’s hidden gems, I perceived a wee shiver of energy zinging up my arm and through my veins. Continue reading →

Recent conversations with a couple of people very dear to me has made one thing abundantly clear: I am not a runner. Oh, I run – 30-40 kms a week – lately more inside than out thanks to a deteriorating lumbar-sacral joint and a deep respect for what that might mean to my life 20 years from now. Still, running is great exercise that can be done at 4:45 AM and I like it as much as any other so, I run. But I am not a runner. Continue reading →